We Can Be Heroes is the newest superhero adventure aimed at children, and among its many references and parodies of different topics and people, is one about the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Civil War trigger. Robert Rodriguez has explored different genres throughout his career as a filmmaker, as are action horror with From Dusk till Dawn, spy comedy with the Spy Kids franchise, neo-noir crime with Sin City, and even cyberpunk with Alita: Battle Angel. The Spy Kids movies were a big hit among younger viewers, and Rodriguez continued exploring the fantasy genre aimed at children with The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, but it didn’t have the same success as Spy Kids, and it was a critical and commercial failure.
Now, fifteen years after the debut of superheroes Sharkboy and Lavagirl, comes a stand-alone sequel titled We Can Be Heroes, focusing on a new generation of heroes while welcoming back the aforementioned characters. We Can Be Heroes follows the children of Earth’s superheroes (among those Guppy, Sharkboy and Lavagirl’s daughter) as they team up after their parents are kidnapped by alien invaders, pushing them to learn to work together so they can save not only their parents but the world as well. The movie has received mixed reviews so far, and while it’s an entertaining adventure for young viewers, there are also some references and parodies that only more mature audiences will catch, as is one about what triggered the MCU’s Civil War.
Although the main focus in We Can Be Heroes are the kids, their powers, and them teaming up, it takes some time to show who their parents are and what they have done. When the kids are locked at the Heroics headquarters, they watch the news on a big TV screen, and it shows mayor Doolittle at the ribbon-cutting of his new City Hall which was rebuilt after the last time the Heroics went into action. Sadly for the mayor, Blinding Fast (Sung Kang) arrived to cut the ribbon, followed by Crushing Low (Brently Heilbron) as he fittingly crashed into the new building, destroying it “in record time”. The destruction and rebuilding of the City Hall are played as a gag and it's implied that they happen often, as the news reporter says they cost taxpayers a lot of money but they're entertaining to watch.
The Civil War conflict in the MCU was triggered by the destruction of Sokovia in Avengers: Age of Ultron along with many other casualties since the formation of The Avengers, though this obviously had bigger and more serious consequences in the MCU than in We Can Be Heroes, as the governments definitely didn’t see them as entertaining at all. Another reference can be found when the presumed villains in We Can Be Heroes point out the egos clashing among the Heroics and the fighting between the children as well, with both teams unable to work as one at different points. The MCU had its dose of fights within the Avengers with the division of Team Captain America and Team Iron Man in Captain America: Civil War, though once again, this had long-lasting consequences in the MCU, with the heroes finally joining forces again in Avengers: Endgame, a long time after Civil War.
All these references and more to the MCU’s heroes and themes in We Can Be Heroes make it entertaining for adults as well, even if it's primarily a superhero adventure for children, with a team consisting of kids of different ages, with different backgrounds, and different abilities, who ultimately learn to work as a team and bring out the best of each other, something that Captain America and Iron Man took a long, long time to understand, and by the time they did, it was too late.